* 196 THE EGYPTIAN PROBLEM CHAP.
substantial existence, were at any rate names to conjure with.
The influence of all these desperate elements quickly changed the temper of the Cairene crowds. On April 7th they had paraded the streets waving flags and branches stripped off the trees Even the Sultan was, for the first and so far for the last time, acclaimed in his palace at Abdeen. Rushdi Pasha, who had not then actually resumed office, was recognised and effusively embraced by a group of excited Effendis. ZaghluTs house was, of course, the chief centre of popular enthusiasm, but all | the foreign Consulates were visited in turn and shouts
1 raised for the Allied Powers, even sometimes for the
I English. But two days later collisions with the military
* began again. A British colonel was severely wounded
| .and two British soldiers were beaten to death in Abdeen
I Square. Some incidents probably originated in unfor-
| tunate misunderstandings, but in most cases the crowd
I wantonly attacked isolated Englishmen, and between
f April 9th and llth four officers were wounded and eight
' soldiers killed and fifteen wounded. Nor was it only
] against the British that the mob let themselves go.
I The Armenian who had fired or was supposed to have
J fired on the crowd on April 3rd had escaped. This
| had rankled, and, as reprisal, seven Armenians were
! killed in unpatrolled quarters of the town before any
I troops could come to their rescue. The Armenian com-
| munity was panic-stricken and whole families had to be
I shifted into safer quarters both in Cairo and in Alexandria,
;•' whore there was also an angry hunt for unfortunate
I Armenians.
I In spite of all these ugly incidents, the troops, judi-
r ciously handled, succeeded in checking any further
outbreaks of wholesale violence, and order was once more restored in the streets of Cairo. In the provinces the active rebellion was practically over. But strikes and incitements to strike continued. The Strike Committees clearly took their orders direct from political period of the Occupation, or the success with, which